


Better run before you become yourself

by belmanoir



Series: Flying from the blast [3]
Category: Kyle XY, The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Body hate, Gen, Internalized racism, Suicidal Thoughts, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-21
Updated: 2012-06-21
Packaged: 2017-11-08 05:53:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/439872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He stares in the mirror at his Jotun face and sees Laufey bend over Odin, sees Laufey's ugly blue hands touch the soft skin around Odin's eye. His stomach curls.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better run before you become yourself

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Sonia.
> 
>  **Warnings:** suicidal thoughts, body hate, internalized racism.
> 
> If you are upset or offended or otherwise bothered by how I dealt with any of those topics (or anything else in the fic), or if you think I should be warning for more or warning differently or using different terminology, you can tell me in the comments, by private message, or by email at belmanoir at gmail dot com.

"Brother!" Thor appears in the doorway of their RV, framed by four tall, drunk blonds. "This is Alex, Chris, Jenna, and Cal. They would like to watch football on your toplap."

Loki smiles thinly and pauses _America's Next Top Model._ "Of course I would hate to disappoint Alex, Chris, Jenna, and Cal. I'm Luke." Golden hair and golden skin gleaming, they pile through the doorway and sprawl over the bed that's the only place to sit in the RV, talking about how hungover they got last weekend. Loki feels suddenly as if he can't breathe. He pushes his laptop across the bed to Alex, who looks the least drunk. "Here you go. I'll be right back." He goes into the tiny bathroom and locks the door.

"Was your brother seriously watching this? Is he gay or what?" 

Jenna laughs. "God, you're such an asshole! Just because he's pretty."

"Lo--Luke admires Tyra Banks," Thor says cheerfully, as if the hostility in the question was lost on him. But Loki notices that his answer implies Loki watches because of attraction to a woman. Tyra Banks has a face worthy of a goddess, of course, but it's her gift for mischief that Loki admires.

Loki doesn't want to go back out there. He already despises these people. He's spent so much of his life sitting silent and pretending to enjoy himself while Thor's friends carouse.

 _Just because he's pretty._ He examines his face in the small mirror. He knows it's pretty. Sharp, delicate features and watchful green eyes. Pale skin made paler by soft dark hair. How did his mind choose this face? 

He shifts into his Jotun form, pretty green eyes going a baleful red and delicate features becoming blunt and brutal and blue. He chose the other. He would never choose this.

What if he went out there now, like this? Would Thor's big strong new friends run screaming? Or are they already too drunk to feel fear? Would they only laugh?

Would another frost giant, used to distinguishing one set of these features from another, think he resembled Laufey? He stares in the mirror and sees Laufey bend over Odin, sees Laufey's ugly blue hands touch the soft skin around Odin's eye. His stomach curls.

"What's your brother doing in there?"

One of them laughs. "Probably wanking."

"Or taking the world's biggest dump."

There's a chorus of "ewwww"s.

"Let us commence the game!" Thor says heartily. Loki knows from experience that he''ll rarely tell them directly to stop. Of course, Thor never sees the worst slights; they're reserved for when he cannot hear.

Loki's never looked at his manhood in this form. He unzips his jeans and pushes them down his thighs along with his briefs. A deeper blue than the rest of his skin, it isn't any bigger than his Asgardian penis, which strikes him as unfair. Three deep grooves run down the top, from the base to the head. He runs his ungainly thumb along them and hisses in a breath. It feels good. He doesn't want it to. He hates that it does. 

He hates it so much that he takes the thing entirely in his hand and strokes, just to feel that stab of shame again, deeper. A killing blow. He watches himself in the mirror. His unsettling black pupils dilate, turning his eyes the deep red of congealing blood. His nostrils flare wider and his panting breaths have a strange resonance to them. Thor and his friends are a few feet away, happy and normal and oblivious, and he is here, sick satisfaction coursing through his veins. He strokes faster, harder, and thinks at his blue face, _This is what you deserve._

Jotun seed is chilly and slightly pink, like a few drops of blood mixed with spoiled cream. He cleans it up and flushes it down the toilet, shifts back into himself, and goes out to face them.

"Brother!" Thor beams at him and extends an arm. "Come sit by me!" 

###

Loki knocks the eight-ball into the corner pocket. He crows and puts out his hand, palm up. "Pay up, boys!" They don't. He thought that might happen. 

But they're hardly a match for him, so he lets them shove him outside, accuse him of cheating, et cetera, et cetera. He doesn't care about their money anyway. The thrill is in the hustle. Any moment now, he'll get bored, throw them against the wall, and disappear.

One of them hits him in the side of the head with a beefy swing. He sees it coming, but somehow it connects anyway. He goes down hard on one knee. A kick in the ribs sends him sprawling. He bit through his lip. He laughs and spits blood at them. 

"Crazy fuck," one of them says, and moves to kick him in the face.

Loki watches the boot coming and, without knowing why, shifts to blue.

The cowards scatter like pigeons. Loki lies there, desperately disappointed. He wanted to hear that hooked nose crack.

###

"Let me get this straight," Nicole says, watching the video again. "They were going to beat you up behind a bar and they decided to film it on their phone?" 

Loki shrugs. She thinks the impulse to record a crime might not be altogether foreign to him. The video is all over YouTube, which is how Thor came across it. Luckily for Loki, it was dark enough that he's probably unrecognizable even to people who've seen the videos from Stuttgart. 

It looks like Loki was raising his head to snarl menacingly at his assailants, but she isn't sure. He might be turning his face towards the kick. 

"Loki was in no danger from those mortals," Thor says impatiently, as if her concern is an insult. "He could have bathed the pavement in their blood."

Nicole decides to ignore that. "Loki, why did you choose to take on your frost giant form?"

Loki turns his eyes on her, face blank. "I panicked," he says, and smiles. She can't put her finger on it, but there is an essential disconnect between the flat, mocking tones and his face. Something is very wrong.

"Thor, I'd like to talk to your brother alone for a minute," she says. "Can you wait in the hallway?"

Thor looks at Loki, who shrugs and smiles strangely at him too. Thor frowns, but he stands.

"If Loki wants to talk to you about what I say to him, he will. Don't bug him about it." Thor's frown deepens. "Promise me you won't ask him."

"Or listen at the door," Loki says, needling his brother. She still can't pinpoint that note in his voice. Hysteria? Mania? Sometimes she wonders if he does drugs, but she thinks the answer is no. Sometimes his sarcasm is so exaggerated she wonders if he's trying to goad Thor into commenting on it.

"I promise," Thor snaps at his brother. The door shuts loudly behind him. 

Loki watches her, eyes bright and hard. "Now you have me all to yourself." He leans in with a grin that would be flirtatious if it weren't so aggressively false.

"Loki, I'm going to ask you a very personal question. It's very important, and I hope you'll answer it honestly."

Loki does something with his eyes that reminds her of Lori saying, _Good luck with **that,** Mom._

"Do you ever think about hurting yourself?"

He freezes for a second, and then says with that same blank, exaggerated sarcasm, "What on _earth_ would give you that idea?"

"It's nothing to be ashamed of. Self-harm and thoughts about self-harm are very, very common. But they can also be dangerous, and I want to try to help you stay safe." There's a long pause.

Loki's face breaks into an incredulous smile. He laughs and shakes his head, a sound of genuine, almost affectionate amusement. "How little you cherish your world!"

"What do you mean?" she asks neutrally. Her worry is growing by leaps and bounds.

"You know what I did. You know what I could do again. Yet you fight for my life like a bear for her cub. Truly, humanity yearns for its own destruction."

She watches him, trying to think how to say this so as to put his back up as little as possible. "I hate to sound like a psychologist, but do you think you might be projecting your own feelings and perceptions onto me?"

His eyes narrow. "You love to sound like a psychologist," he says. "Please. Share your great insights."

"I just want to unpack what you said a little, okay?"

"Hit me."

"Well, you implied that I'm repelled by your actions in Stuttgart and New York a few months ago. You also implied that I believe you're unstable, dangerous, and have nothing positive to offer the world. You characterized my desire for your survival as a misguided animal instinct." She pauses, but he doesn't say anything. "And you said that I yearn for my own destruction. I think maybe, those are things that _you_ feel."

He bares his teeth at her, hands clenching on the arms of his chair. She gets ready to call for Thor, and maybe Kyle too. Unstable and dangerous, she'll grant him. He could kill her right now.

That's how threatened he feels, just by being seen. He's been in a very necessary camouflage since he was a baby. A person's core emotional beliefs are usually inaccurate, but they're always logical. "If you want to know what I really think, Loki, you can ask me."

"Tell me then," he snarls. "O wise all-seeing one."

She chooses her words carefully. "I like you a lot. You're a likeable young man, and I think you know that. Plus, you remind me of a young woman I know who's one of my favorite people in the world."

He blinks. "What?"

"I'm not going to deny that you're a challenging client, but often the most challenging clients end up being my favorites. Loki, there is nothing unconsidered about my decision to be your therapist. I've thought it over very carefully and discussed it with my family and we agreed that the risks were worth it. This is what I choose to do for a living. I do cherish the world, very much, and I show that through my work. I know some of what you did, and when you're ready to talk about it, we will."

"Be careful what you wish for," he hisses.

"Before I worked with S.H.I.E.L.D., I specialized in troubled teenagers. A lot of them had histories of violence like you do. You won't shock me. Yes, some of what you tell me might be upsetting and disturbing, but--I think you find it upsetting and disturbing too. Don't you?"

He just watches her, like a cornered snake waiting for its moment to strike. Now he's got _her_ using animal metaphors. She feels her way forward. "If you were from this world, we'd probably be having this conversation in prison. But I don't believe in the death penalty. I don't believe anyone deserves to die. And I believe that prison is about rehabilitation, not punishment. You're working very hard to rehabilitate yourself, and I think you've been working pretty hard to punish yourself too."

He laughs again. "Oh yes, a little self-pity and the slate is wiped clean!"

"Is that what I said?"

He glares.

"Loki, do you think about killing yourself?"

His eyes gleam. "I tried that. It didn't work."

Shit. Shit shit shit. She knew it. "Do you think you might try again?"

He gives her that pseudo-flirtatious smile again. "Would you miss me?"

"Yes," she says simply. "Very much." 

"Mortals are so _soft!_ " He picks a paperweight off her desk and hurls it at the wall.

"You promised me no violence," she reminds him. "We're not done with this conversation, but if you can't honor that ground rule, I'm going to have to call Thor back in while we have it."

He shoots a panicked look at the door and subsides, seething.

"Loki, please tell me how you're feeling. You're worrying me."

She think he's going to refuse, but to her surprise, his face--it doesn't soften. But it's contorted with sad pleading instead of fury. "What good is my life?" he asks her. "What is the point of crawling forward, day after day after day?"

She puts out her hand. "May I?"

He shrugs, so she covers his hand with her own. It's vibrating. "You can be happy," she tells him. "You can feel okay about yourself. It will take time and hard work, but you can do it."

He sneers. "Aren't you going to tell me how cruel it would be to Thor, after he's given up so much?"

"I wouldn't use the word 'cruel,' but I do think Thor would be devastated."

Loki presses his lips together. "He doesn't even have to try. He just feels how he's supposed to, all the time. Of course he'd be devastated. He's a _good brother._ " Sarcasm drips off those words.

"It's okay to be angry at Thor," she says. "It doesn't make you a bad brother."

"Does trying to kill him make me a bad brother?" he asks snidely.

Sometimes being a therapist is terrifying. There's so much to get wrong, and you never really even know if you got it right. "Did you try to kill him?"

"I did kill him." He smiles. "That didn't work either."

He's right, she isn't sure it's healthy for Thor to stay so close to Loki, with almost no support structure. She never has been. But both of them have furiously resisted any suggestion that distance might benefit them, and it isn't her decision. "Do you think we could bring Thor back in and involve him in this conversation? After all, he knows how he feels better than I do."

Loki hesitates. Sometimes he's got more walls than Fort Knox, and then he'll turn around and act like an open wound. She has no idea what he'll say--but then, her clients are always surprising her. She reminds herself that free will is a good thing. 

"Go digging in Thor's heart if you must," he says at last. She wonders if it's a mistake to let that little piece of shifting responsibility slide, but decides it's not a priority. She opens the door for Thor.

Loki drums his fingers on his chair and stares out the window.

"Loki, can you tell your brother what you told me, about how you feel about your life?"

Loki doesn't say a word.

"Can I repeat it?"

He shrugs. "I can hardly stop you." 

She'd let it go again, but she's worried that this feeling of not being in control could contribute to him acting on self-destructive impulses. "If you say no, I'll respect that. You can't control everything, but when you have a choice, own it."

Loki waves his hand, and a huge flower arrangement spelling YES appears on her desk. Foxglove predominates.

"Thank you, Loki." She lifts it off and puts it on the floor. "Please correct me if I say anything you don't feel is accurate. Thor, I asked Loki if he ever thought about killing himself. He told me he had already--"

Thor stands. "No!" His big hands clench into fists. "Brother, I forbid it!" He reaches for Loki, who strains towards him as if longing for a fight. His eyes burn starkly in his white face.

"Sit down, Thor," she says. "Being accusatory is counterproductive. This is Loki's decision. You can't take that away from him."

Thor rounds on her, eyes flashing. "Would you rather I let him die?"

"Remember, you are not in control of Loki's actions. You are not responsible for them." Thor has been given entirely too much responsibility in his life, she thinks. By his parents _and_ by Loki. "The opposite of forbidding him to kill himself is not letting him die. Please, sit down. We can get through this."

Thor sits, but he moves his chair so that it's almost touching Loki's.

"Did you know about Loki's suicide attempt?" Based on his reaction, she can guess the answer to that one.

"Father said I was wrong." Thor clenches his jaw. "He said Loki lost his grip."

"He would," Loki mutters. 

"Why don't you tell me what happened?" she says.

Thor glances at his brother. He looks angry, which she finds interesting. "I tossed him into an abyss. Is that not right, Loki?" The question is almost sarcastic.

Loki's eyebrows go up. "You remember me saying that?"

 _Help L understand that just bc T doesn't always remember what he says, his words still matter,_ Nicole writes.

Thor's jaw tightens further. "I should have gone after you. I could have--"

Loki's mouth twists. "I did it to get away from you!" Any second now they'll be screaming at each other

"Come on, boys," she says. "Remember to avoid 'should's and loaded language. Can you tell me what happened, as straightforwardly as possible?"

The story takes a lot of prompting and is even more horrific than she expected. There's a lot to unpack and there's no way they can do it in one session, so she focuses on what she thinks is the most important right now.

"Thor, can you tell Loki, as openly as you can, how you felt when you thought he was dead?"

"I mourned for him," Thor says instantly, as though she'd accused him of not doing it. "We all did."

She nods. "Even though he'd tried to kill you?"

Thor bowed his head. "I was angry at him." He says it like a confession. "I was angry when I returned to Asgard. I let him goad me into a fight. If I had--"

"He's very easy to goad into a fight," Loki says. "Call him princess. See what I mean."

Nicole makes a gesture at Thor to stay in his chair. "Thor, it's natural to feel guilty when someone we love commits suicide. But partly that guilt is a coping mechanism. Suicide is a very scary thing. It's a huge decision that someone else makes, that affects us profoundly and is entirely outside our control. Focusing on what we could have done, and what we would do differently next time, it helps us feel more in control. There's nothing wrong with that, but can you let go of that right now and just tell Loki how it felt for you when he wasn't there?"

"Peaceful?" Loki suggests.

Thor's eyes fill with tears. "I cannot describe it." It always surprises her how quickly he can go from stoic to crying, when he's told it's okay. How much does he hold back on a regular basis?

"We don't have to do this," Loki says, his voice softer than she's ever heard it. She's seen a lot of Thor taking care of Loki, but she wonders if it was different when they were growing up. "Screw therapy. Let's go somewhere and get smashing drunk."

Thor's shoulders sink. "I drank at your wake, brother. I thought I wanted to forget."

Loki goes still and silent. She doesn't think he's breathing.

"But you didn't?" she prompts after a moment.

He shakes his head. "I grew afraid I would lose your memory too. I grew afraid that my memories of you were all wrong. That I had never seen--" He swallows. "Even a king may cry at a wake." He shoots Loki a look with a gleam of humor in it. "But perhaps not as much as I did."

She's noticed before that sometimes Loki is very willing to take emotional cues from Thor. In particular, when Thor cries, Loki usually tears up. "Did you toast me, brother?"

"Many times."

"What did you say?"

Thor rubs at his head. "I don't remember. I only know I made every man in the room drink to you until I could not stand. But in the morning, you were still gone."

"No one to cosset your headache?"

Thor resists and resists, but once he gets started being honest, he goes all the way. "I was a lesser man without you," he says, looking at his brother. "The scales were unbalanced. Mjolnir felt too heavy in my hand. I did not..."

It's an unusually vague, symbolic explanation. She doesn't think Thor always has the vocabulary to articulate his feelings. He once insisted with obvious honesty that he enjoyed Loki's company but could only come up with two examples of things he liked about his brother. Loki threw a spectacular tantrum that day.

Today, Loki seems satisfied. "Yes?" he breathes.

Thor shakes his head. "It sounds foolish. I am no poet."

"Feelings are always a little silly," Nicole says. "That's okay."

"I did not like my own smile," Thor says, his eyes red and wet. "It needed you to shape it."

Loki is crying too. He smiles at his brother. But this time the tears and the smile don't seem disconnected from each other. Thor reaches out and clasps his hand.

"Me asking you to talk to Loki about this doesn't mean it's your job to keep him alive, okay, Thor?" Nicole says after a minute, when she can trust her voice. "I just want Loki to be able to ask you for support if he wants it. And you can ask for support too." She hands both of them a card with a number written on it. "Either of you can call this number at any time of the day or night, and I'll answer it." They pocket the cards. "Listening to this story, it sounds like neither of you were really communicating with the other about what was going on. Do you think next time you're having a rough time, you could try talking directly about how you're feeling?"

Thor agrees readily and Loki not at all. She suspects both of them will need a lot of practice in her office before they follow through, but hopefully they're at least thinking about it. The rest of the session is mostly her suggesting that Loki try turning blue during fun activities, to create more positive associations. She gives him the location of the Mutant Brotherhood safe-space beach near Arrawarra. She checked with the Brotherhood, and it's okay for non-mutant non-humanoids to use it as long as they're respectful. At the end of the session, she asks Thor to wait outside again. 

"How are you feeling?"

"I suppose I won't hang myself _this_ week." His smile is brilliant. She wants to trust it.

"I want you to make a deal with me," she says. "As long as you're in therapy, you won't kill yourself or purposely put yourself in danger."

His eyes narrow. "And what do I get?"

"You get my promise that any time of the day or night, you can call me and talk to me. If you need to see me in person, I will come as quickly as I can."

He pulls the card out of his pocket and eyes her speculatively, a smile hovering around his mouth like he thinks he's about to pull one over on her. "I thought you didn't give out personal information."

She smiles back. "I don't. That's a disposable, untraceable phone. And you can call me on it anytime." He agrees, they shake--and then he points out that she didn't specify that prank calls weren't allowed. 

###

Two days later, Thor gets a bad sunburn. "Did you put on your sunscreen?" Loki asks.

"Yes," Thor insists. 

"Did you remember to reapply it?"

Thor's eyes shift. "Yes!" 

"You're a terrible liar, brother." Loki shakes his head. "At least tell me you forgot because you were talking to a pretty girl." 

Thor denies it. Loki can't figure out his angle until he says, "Perhaps you might cool me."

"Your body temperature hasn't changed," Loki explains, rolling his eyes. "Your skin is damaged. It will heal soon enough. I can make you a _really_ good icepack, though."

Thor bites his lip. "I thought contact with your skin--"

Loki turns on him. "Oh, I see! This is all a plot. Well, I'm sorry, brother, but I don't think licking your wounds is precisely the sort of positive associations Nicole had in mind!"

Thor huffs out a frustrated, stubborn breath. "There is no plot."

"Why is self-sacrifice always your first plan?" Loki is seething. Of course Thor decided that a little more nobility on his own part would solve all Loki's problems. Hasn't he been _listening_?

Thor's brows draw sharply together. "Why is running away always yours?"

"Running _away?_ "

When the fight is over, they have to call a repairman to mend the side of the RV. Loki goes into the bathroom and locks the door. _Why is running away always yours?_ He's proving Thor right at this very moment, but he can't bring himself to go out and meet Thor's eyes. His brother only wanted to help.

_Take my life and end this._

_If you destroy the Bridge, you'll never see her again!_ he told Thor, and Thor did it anyway to save Jotunheim.

_If I were worthy of your love and your loyalty, I would have them._

_Mjolnir felt too heavy in my hand._

Thor's plans always get him hurt, by their very nature. And--it hits him like lightning--Thor doesn't feel worthy? That can't be right. Thor's blinding entitlement has been the bedrock on which Loki's world rests. 

And yet.

He goes back out. Thor is sulking on the bed in his boxers, skin painfully red. There are redder spots where Loki hit him. Loki crawls onto the bed next to him, shedding his own clothes. "You're sure about this?"

Thor perks up at once. For the first time, that seems pathetic. "I am in much discomfort," he says with great sincerity.

Loki can't help smiling. Sitting against the wall, he lets his skin ice over, but keeps his own features. "Come here."

Thor settles between his legs, leaning back against him with a sigh. He pulls Loki's hands around his waist, his head resting on Loki's shoulder. Loki spits out a mouthful of golden hair.

Keeping his usual form is easy; his body knows that magic without effort or thought. But once he's begun the shift, it's almost impossible to hold back his face. It longs to bulge and gape and furrow. His blue hands grow against Thor's. Thor stiffens for a moment. Loki's own skin crawls at the sight. _Laufey's fingers on the smooth skin of Odin's eye..._

But Thor relaxes a moment later. "Thank you, brother."

Loki sits very still. The last time he and Thor were this close without hitting each other, he thought they were really brothers. He's wanted this back for so long, the simple trust and affection of Thor's body. "I missed you too," he says, and hears Thor's breath hitch at the changed, eerie timbre of his voice. But Thor doesn't move.

Maybe Nicole is right. Maybe it's okay that sometimes he hates Thor, or that Thor hates frost giants. Maybe the important thing is just that they choose to stay and work through this, together. 

"Tell me a story, brother," Thor says. 

Some things never change. "When Nithhöggr, who feeds at the roots of the World Tree, was no bigger than a coffee mug..."

###

He awakens from a sound sleep to Thor's hands around his neck. "Brother, it is I," he gasps.

"I would know my own brother," Thor growls, and the hammer comes down--

###

He wakes up. His hands are around Thor's neck. "Brother," Thor gasps, "it was but a nightm--" His face ices over before he can finish the word.

###

Loki wakes up, heart racing. He turns his head. Thor's chest rises and falls peacefully as he sleeps beside his greatest enemy.

 _Try to think positively about yourself in your frost giant form,_ Nicole said. She'd given him a phrase to say, a stupid phrase he couldn't bring himself to say out loud in her hearing.

"I completely love and accept myself," he whispers experimentally. Even in a whisper, his Jotun voice hums and echoes in the dim room. Thor starts awake, putting out a hand to call his hammer. It doesn't come.

Loki did this. He took everything from Thor. How can it possibly be worth it?

"Brother?" Thor says uncertainly. "Is that you?" He still cannot easily distinguish one Jotun from another. Loki shifts back into himself.

 _They're both you,_ Nicole's voice reminds him. _They're both just you._

Thor frowns sleepily. "No," he mumbles. "Hot." He reaches for Loki. Enough moonlight filters in through the tiny windows that Loki can see his sunburn has mostly healed. Thor always did love to nurse an injury. 

_Healthy people are the worst patients,_ Frigga said. _Your brother is used to being strong. When the smallest thing goes wrong, he can't believe it._ But Loki hoped that maybe Thor wanted to draw out their time together in the healing room as much as Loki did. 

He shifts and pulls Thor against him, back to chest. "Malingerer." Thor makes a sleepy, laughing sound.

###

He sleeps later than usual. "You should sleep blue every night, brother," Thor says, and even his smug expression doesn't wear on Loki's nerves quite the way it usually does. He feels less tired than he has in a long time. "We could turn off the air conditioner. The ozone layer would be most grateful." Since he can't literally save the world anymore, Thor's become a passionate environmentalist. Loki blames Tony Stark. But he sleeps in his Jotun form every night that week. 

They have to replace some of the cabinets in the bathroom, because Loki gets up for a piss in the middle of the night, catches sight of himself, and incinerates the mirror before he remembers what's going on. But his mood just keeps improving. One day, when Thor isn't home, he looks up the side effects of insomnia on his laptop. Depression, irritability, tension headaches. Has maintaining his Asgardian form kept him from sleeping soundly all these years? 

It doesn't, really, make him feel as if his problems are within his control. But it's nice to only feel as if the sound of Thor eating is scraping the skin from his flesh about two-thirds as often as he used to. It's nice not to feel worn out before the day even begins.

###

He decides to go to the mutant beach. Nicole will be pleased. He wants to please her, which makes him angry. Maybe he just won't tell her.

He's not sure what to expect, so he shows up in his Asgardian form. But the beach is full of freaks. They all seem to know each other. Loki drops his towel by a sunbathing crone with fangs and repulsively long toenails (he's not sure if that's a mutation or not) and heads for the water. He doesn't change until he's already in. The water feels suddenly much warmer. The sun beats down aggressively on his cool blue skin. It's not really very comfortable, but at least nobody seems to be paying much attention to the monster in their midst. Loki is used to being ignored. He wonders if he's disappointed, if he wanted everyone to stare.

He forgets about it surfing, though. He loves surfing, loves finding that space of perfect balance in vast forces beyond his control. He's planning to work up to killer waves, one of these days. He almost falls, and, heart racing, rights himself with a little cold magic, a spray of ice.

"Hey, dickwad!" someone calls. "Do that on a day when it's less crowded!"

Loki doesn't know what to feel about any of this.

Hours later, he leaves the water and makes his way to his towel. The sunbathing crone is gone, but his things are still there. He puts down his board and hesitates. Should he shift before removing his wetsuit?

"Hey, big guy," a female voice says. "Where you been all my life?"

He looks up. She's green, probably a few years older than he looks, with a fin jutting asymmetrically out of the side of her face. She is the farthest thing from pretty, but she has a fish-teeth razor-sharp smile and a confident set to her shoulders. "I'm not from around here," he says.

Her eyes widen. "Killer voice. You want a beer?"

Is she really hitting on him? Like this? He unzips the front of his wetsuit, just to see her reaction. She watches with what seems like genuine appreciation, even when the strange ridges in his skin come into view. 

He waits too long to answer, though. She shrugs. "You weren't bad out there. If you want a few pointers or a beer or, like, a popsicle, whichever, come hang out with me and my friends. We're here a few times a week." She turns her back on him, entirely comfortable in her skimpy bikini even though there are scaly patches on her buttocks. For a moment Loki hates her.

###

When he gets back to the RV, Thor is sprawled on their bed with a group of Asian backpackers, watching mixed martial arts on Loki's laptop.

"Brother!" Thor says. "Come and behold this fighter, he is mighty!"

Loki takes a reluctant step forward, and then he says, "I think I'm just going to hit the hay." Thor looks confused. Honestly, doesn't he pay any attention when other people talk? Hasn't he learned a single idiom since they got here? Loki crawls up into the cabover bed and stretches out. 

"Brother," Thor protests. "Our guests!"

Loki ignores him. He can't actually fall asleep with other people talking so close, but he turns his back to them. From this distance, their dull chatter is slightly less irritating. He pretends to sleep until they stumble drunkenly off, then shifts into his Jotun form. He hears Thor moving around, getting ready for bed. He pauses a few feet away. Loki can feel Thor's eyes on his blue back. He wonders what Thor sees.

"Brother," Thor slurs contentedly to himself, and moves off.

Thor wants to be here. He could have stayed in Asgard, he could have been an Avenger on Earth, but he chose to be here with Loki. Maybe because he thought it was his chance for redemption, maybe because he thought it was his duty, but maybe too--he couldn't imagine anything else, any more than Loki can. Maybe he clings so desperately to Loki because he actually wants him.

Both of them were born to be kings, and here they are in a rundown RV with nothing but a few T-shirts and trousers and some expensive Stark electronics to their name. At this particular moment, Loki doesn't mind.


End file.
